Grumet-Morris Garnering National Recognition

You might not know it from a quick glance at his win-loss record, but Harvard’s junior goaltender is playing the best hockey of his life, and he has the stats—and growing national reputation—to prove it.

Since a pre-Thanksgiving showdown with cross-town rival BU, Dov Grumet-Morris and the Crimson have gone 3-3, but those losses have been either one-goal games or nights of offensive impotence for Harvard. Grumet-Morris stopped 34 shots en route to the team’s biggest win of the season, and then followed that up with his first shutout of the year, blanking St. Lawrence 3-0.

In what was his worst showing of six fine performances, Grumet-Morris allowed two goals on 28 shots in a 3-0 loss to Clarkson. Against Colgate he regained some of his poise, stopping a number of break-aways in Harvard’s 4-2 win.

Over the last two games, however, Grumet-Morris has really shined. Last weekend in Lynah Rink he allowed one goal on 24 shots and stymied a Cornell offense that had a number of close chances late in the game. And Wednesday night against BC he robbed the Eagle’s top line of Eaves-Voce-Eaves on a number of plays, turning aside 35 shots and making the final numbers on the scoreboard—BC 3, Harvard 2—seem far closer than the game actually was.

Throughout the season, Harvard coach Mark Mazzoleni has emphasized that he needs a “four on a five scale” from its goaltender every night for the team to be competitive. While Mazzoleni hasn’t revealed how he would rate, at least numerically, Grumet-Morris’s performance over the last six games, two figures are telling—he currently ranks fourth in the nation in goals against average (1.67) and fifth in save percentage (.941).

Another telling number? Eight, as in the UMass Minutemen, ranked No. 8 nationally, who skate into Bright this weekend. And given Harvard’s difficulties finding the back of the net, the team will need another exceptional performance from Grumet-Morris in order to see a W.

—TIMOTHY M. MCDONALD